The Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) announced today the establishment of PictBridge, an industry standard enabling a range of digital photo solutions, including the direct printing of photos from a digital still camera without the need to use a PC. Originally proposed last December as "DPS" by Canon Inc., Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., HP, Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., Seiko Epson Corporation and Sony Corporation, the specification was then adopted by CIPA for formal standardization (CIPA DC-001-2003). Until now, each company had its own proprietary solution for direct printing between digital still cameras and printers.

This situation has proven to be limiting to consumers, as they are unable to achieve the same convenience and ease of use when using different product combinations and brands. The unified and open specification ensures compatibility across PictBridge-enabled digital cameras and printers, affording consumers the convenience of producing high-quality photos effortlessly using the controls of their camera. Moreover, the formal announcement of the specification as a CIPA standard is expected to further promote the broad adoption of PictBridge throughout the digital imaging industry.

PictBridge defines an application-layer interface that is transport independent, enabling its extensibility for implementation on future physical interfaces. The new specification is initially written for USB as a physical transport and Picture Transfer Protocol for data transfer. By connecting a PictBridge-enabled digital still camera to a PictBridge-enabled printer with a single cable, users can easily control the print settings using their camera and produce high-quality photos without using a PC.

PictBridge supports the following features: Print an image displayed on the digital still camera, Print two or more images selected from the display on the digital still camera, Automatically print images using the Digital Print Order Format specification, Print an index of all images, Print all images.

Advanced features using the print setup option include: Print part of the image by specifying the print area, Print multiple copies of a single image, Print images with a date imprint, Specify the exact size of a print.

Printer status information displayed on the digital still camera includes: Establishment of a connection, Printer Error, Printing progress, End of print job, Cable can be safely disconnected.